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Behavioral Weight Loss Tips -- with free psychology tools

Here are behavioral weight loss tips that will enable you to make losing weight as easy on yourself as possible. These are excellent free tips and tools for weight loss. Our first behavioral tips concern your environment. Insofar as you control your environment, deliberately organize it in ways that are helpful.

The more control you lack, the unhappier you will be; the more you control you have, the happier you will be.

Ask yourself, “What can I do to improve my environment and my lifestyle for weight loss?” If you do that and follow our weight loss tips, you'll have an effective plan that will sustain you hour-by-hour, day-by-day, week-by-week.

Behavioral weight loss tips about people and food

Until you reach your weight loss goal, adopt a weight loss plan.
It's also important to have a weight maintenance plan for when you have reached your desired percentage of body fat.

The reason to have both is this: it is more difficult to keep weight off than it is to lose it initially.

The two-part overall plan should help you avoid whatever hinders you and help you to surround yourself with whatever helps you.

For example, should you keep lots of refined processed carbohydrates (like any of those in the graphic to the left) in your home when you are trying to lose weight? Should you watch food commercials on television when you are trying to lose weight?

Should you make friends with a gym rat or two? Or should you hang out at pizza joints or bars?

Please spend time with people who will help you on your journey to weight loss rather than those who will hinder you.

It would be great if all your friends and family wanted you to succeed. However, might some not want you to change your eating habits? If, for example, they are overweight, might your losing weight and keeping it off put pressure on them to change their eating habits, too?

You don't control other people, and it's futile trying. You can only control yourself. You can do that best by adopting an effective behavioral weight loss plan that will enable you to succeed. In that way, you will be setting a good example for others to follow.

In fact, you don't even have to lose weight for yourself! You can do it for a loved one, perhaps a beloved child.

Mental food for weight loss

The morning routine is very important and can establish your determination and mood for the rest of the day. As a behavioral weight loss tip, this one should not be overlooked.

Look at your morning routine with fresh eyes.

For example, suppose you are in the habit of watching television news or reading a newspaper during breakfast. Is that a habit that's serving you well? No, it is not. In terms of mental nutrition, the first hour or two in the morning are the most important hours of the day. This is the time to focus on your goals and plan your weight loss routine for the rest of the day.

Mornings are the time to fill your mind with positive mental food and organize your thinking to serve your behavioral weight loss plan. Mornings are the worst possible time to think about how many murders there were in the city last night or how poorly your favorite sports team is doing.

We are not saying that you shouldn't pay attention to the rest of the world, but we are saying that you should pay attention to it in a way that is as innocuous as possible. Watch or read about the news later in the day or, better, read a weekly newsmagazine — as long as you don't read it in the morning.

In terms of mental nutrition, the first hour or two in the morning are the most important hours of the day for everyone, not just those seeking weight loss.

Cherish them. Maximize them.

Psychology and behavioral weight loss tips

In the Psychology section of our website we have many behavioral weight loss tips.

In addition, we have included several free, powerful psychological tools that you may include in your behavioral weight loss plan.

If you make them part of your weight loss plan, even for just three months, you may be amazed at how helpful they are.

For the free psychological tools and more behavioral weight loss tips, see the Psychology for Weight Loss page.

You will find the link to that page awaiting you further down this page.

The Morning Pages tool

Before we draw up the final blueprint, here in detail is one of our most effective behavioral weight loss tips. Like meditation, it's a tool that, if used, will help your "inner" environment. In fact, if you already meditate, it's not a tool you need—though there's no reason not to use it also.

It's called "Morning Pages."

We borrow this particular way of using this tool from Julia Cameron, who discovered an effective writing practice that works. It's a very simple practice that doesn't require much time. However, it must be done every morning without fail as part of a morning routine. Try it for three months and see if you don't notice improvements as a result. There's no reason not to do it every morning for the rest of your life. You may find that it becomes nearly as valuable as breathing!

Here's the practice: each morning write three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness.

That's it!

If you include this practice in your behavioral weight loss plan, make morning pages part of the morning routine that forms your "inner environment." To get the full benefit from morning pages, one should not skip them or skimp on doing all three pages every morning. You may use a spiral notebook or loose-leaf pages, but put the pages away as soon as you are done writing them and do not look at them for at least two months. Don't show them to other people.

That's all there is to it and it's an excellent technique to include in your behavioral weight loss plan.

"There is no wrong way to do morning pages . . . The morning pages are the primary tool of creative recovery" (from Julia Cameron with Mark Bryan, THE ARTIST'S WAY).

Why do Morning Pages work?

Morning pages is one of our behavioral weight loss tips because it will enable you to empty your mind of all kinds of thoughts that block productivity. Much of what you write will be about petty, inconsequential, daily life stuff.

Much of it may be complaining, or angry, or bitter. Some of it may be hopeful. A lot of it will be negative, which is perfectly normal. After all, we all have an internal critic, a perfectionist censor who is always belittling or mocking us. Your censor's statements are not true, and, by writing them down, you are letting them go—thus freeing yourself from that tyranny.

In time, morning pages, like meditation, will lead you out of dissatisfaction and work well for behavioral weight loss.

Though simple, especially at first morning pages may not be easy. Just sit there and keep writing sentences until you have filled up three pages. You may write about anything at all!

You may write about your experiences with eating or exercising well. You may write about your feelings or your failures or your successes; you may write about your remembered past or your imagined future. You may write about other people in your life or even just the weather. Write about whatever comes to mind.

Any topic is acceptable.

Do you initially resist this way of reforming your environment for behavioral weight loss? Cameron claims that those who are initially most resistant to a morning pages practice come to love it most.

Add morning pages to your behavioral weight loss routine each morning for the next ninety days. Determine for yourself how much you can improve your environment and weight loss in three months.

Learning behavioral weight loss tips

There is more that you may wish to add to your behavioral weight loss tips.

See the recommended resources on our 'Learning' page. You will find the link to that page listed on the sitemap/index, which is listed at the bottom of the menu/navigation buttons.

For example, teach yourself the "swish" technique [pattern] of NLP. Then use it to improve something.

Use it for just ten minutes for two weeks. Notice what happens.

In addition, if low self-esteem might be a problem see our web page on how to build self-esteem and add those behavioral weight loss tips to your plan.

You will find the link to that page listed on the Sitemap/Index.

Behavioral weight loss tips reminder

Remember that our
Healthy Eating Guidelines
is one of the behavioral weight loss tips and remind yourself each morning about your diet. Most days will be non-cheat days. On them you'll be avoiding any refined processed carbohydrates. You'll limit your daily grams of carbohydrates to 25 and get all of those from (preferably organic) berries and vegetables.

You'll eat a protein-based meal every 3 to 5 hours. It's best if it comes from a natural protein source that has plenty of good fat. You'll want to obtain as many grams of protein spread among all your meals as you have pounds of lean body mass. (For example, if you weight 200 lbs. and 25% of that is fat, you should be getting at least 150 grams of protein daily.)

Eating this way will maximize the thermic effect of digesting protein, keep your body from going into a negative nitrogen balance, and prevent hunger while minimizing food cravings.

Plan, too, to drink plenty of clean water. 2 quarts is a minimum. 2 or 4 quarts if you are working hard physically.

Is this day an exercise day? If so, what kind of exercise is it? Strength training? GXP or HIIT?

Is this a cheat day? Your cheat day is the day to have (high glycemic) carbs and fats at the same meal. Assuming that you are not diabetic, t can be a good idea to do that about once a week to spike your leptin levels so that your body doesn't go into starvation mode and slow down your metabolic rate. Even so, even though you've been looking forward to it, please don't stuff yourself even on cheat day; just eat until your hunger goes away and stop eating.

Of course, tweak these guidelines based on your actual results. Remember: you have an opportunity to show others how to take good care of their bodies.

In other words, you cannot help teaching. What are you teaching your fellow workers, acquaintances, loved ones, or friends? Are you teaching them how to achieve and maintain a healthful percentage of body fat? What behavioral weight loss tips are they picking up from you?

Web pages to help you further

In this the psychology section of our website we have the following pages:

On most pages of our website, we aim to recommend the very best books available according to the topic of each page. We endeavor to make the best suggestions based on experience and our many years of work and research in the fields of health and fitness. We suggest only books that

Also, see our video about the Psychology of Living Well in the Present Moment.